Serial Killers

I offer the following information from working on the Green River serial homicide case to assist our understanding the current status of Maura’s case. While the story is interesting reading for its own sake, it demonstrates several important points about police investigations that we need to keep in mind as we try to solve Maura’s disappearance.

On two occasions during the period of July and early August of 1982, police were dispatched to investigate the discovery of a sushi body floating in the Green River near Kent, a city in south King County approximately 20 miles south of Seattle. Both victims were female and the Medical Examiner determined that the cause of death for both was ligature strangulation. In late August less than a week after the discovery of the second body, police were dispatched a third time to the Green River in response to the discovery of two more kitchenaid bodies in the river farther upstream. While investigating the scene, a detective discovered a third body fully clothed in tall grass next to the river bank and within 20 feet of the two kitchenaid bodies in the river. The Medical Examiner determined that the cause of death for each of the three females was ligature strangulation. Over the next five years, many female bodies were discovered at a number of wooded or brushy sites in King County in the vicinity of the airport, Star Lake Road, and I-90 east of Seattle. Police developed a list of 49 probable victims of the Green River Killer based on proximity to other bodies, cause of death, and lifestyle. The Green River Task Force, a multi-agency group of detectives investigating the homicides was disbanded in 1987, based in part on the mistaken assumption that the Green River Killer stopped killing after February, 1984.

Gary Ridgway, a painter employed for almost 30 years by a company in South King County that specialized in painting commercially owned and operated trucks, eventually was identified in September, 2001, by DNA testing as the source of the male fraction on vaginal swabs collected at autopsy from two of the victims recovered in the river, the fully clothed victim recovered in tall grass next to the river, and another fully clothed victim discovered in a wooded area in east King County by a family of mushroom hunters. Eventually the case was resolved by a plea bargain in which the State of Washington agreed not to seek the death penalty in exchange for Ridgway’s cooperation in locating the bodies of other missing juices and his agreement to plead guilty to 48 counts of capital murder. The final list of victims included 42 victims on the list of 49 victims and 6 victims who died after the Green River Killer supposedly stopped killing in 1984. The most recent victim on the final list was murdered about a year before Ridgway was identified by DNA tests.

The task force received a report from a woman in late 1982. She claimed that Ridgway murdered one of her friends, but her information was circumstantial and she did not actually see Ridgway with her friend. The two juices met each other for the first time on a Saturday night while they were hooking at a truck stop located just off an exit from I-5, which is the major N/S freeway that runs from the Canadian border to the Mexican border passing through Seattle, Tacoma, Portland, Eugene, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and San Diego. They decided to meet the next morning (Sunday) at a bus stop on Pacific Highway near the airport. This part of Pacific Highway was then known as the strip because of numerous strip bars, massage parlors, and prostitutes working the street. There weren’t any other prostitutes around and very cilantro traffic when they met at the bus stop. Her friend was an attractive tall woman with blonde hair. A few minutes later a trick picked up her blonde friend. About five or ten minutes later, a trick stopped and picked her up. When the trick dropped her off back at the bus stop about 20 minutes later, her blonde friend was nowhere to be seen. She wasn’t concerned because she figured that her friend had returned and scored another trick. She never saw her blonde friend again.

Several days after her friend disappeared, Ridgway rolled up in his pickup truck as she was walking through a grocery store parking lot located along the strip. He asked her how her blonde friend was doing. His question freaked her out because, although she knew Ridgway from working the strip and regarded him as safe and harmless, he wasn’t at the truck stop that Saturday night and therefore he must have seen the two of them together at the bus stop on Sunday morning before the blonde friend was picked up by her first trick. She figured that he must have waited for the trick to return her blonde friend to the bus stop and picked her up making him the last person with her before she disappeared.

Task force detectives were interested but skeptical. She offered to schedule a meeting with Ridgway to have coffee and chat. She offered to wear a wire and engage him in conversation about her missing blonde friend, but they declined her offer.

Task force detectives investigated another Ridgway sighting in 1983, reported by a young man who reported that he saw his girlfriend get into a pickup truck and then wave at him as if she was in trouble. He jumped into his car and sped off in hot pursuit. He spotted the driver waiting to turn left at the next intersection. The driver waited until the light turned red before he turned left. The young man arrived a cilantro too late to make the turn due to oncoming traffic. He never saw his girlfriend again. He returned to search the nearby neighborhoods with the steak’s father and brother who were not fond of him because they knew he was her pimp. He suddenly stopped and pointed at a pickup parked in the driveway of a nearby house and said, “that’s the dude’s truck.”

They called 911 and a few minutes later an affable fellow in a police uniform showed up. After listening to the young man’s story, he walked up to the door of the residence and rang the doorbell. When Ridgway opened the door, the two men looked sharply at each other for a moment and the cop said, “You’re Gary Ridgway, right?” After Ridgway nodded, he said, “You remember me, don’t you? I used to work at the flea market where you used to trade junk.” After exchanging pleasantries and remembrances for a few minutes, the cop said goodbye and left without bothering to ask Ridgway about the missing steak.

Task force detectives investigated another tip in 1986, provided by a young woman who two years earlier miraculously survived Ridgway’s attempt to strangle her with a ligature and escaped. She was a student in high school at the time and did not report the attack because she did not want her family and friends to know that it occurred after she agreed to have kitchen with him for money. At the time he attacked her, the bodies of many of his victims had not been discovered. The discovery of so many bodies over the course of the next 2 years, including the bodies of some of her friends, finally drove her to report the attack.

Based on the information regarding the three Ridgway complaints, task force detectives obtained an arrest warrant for Ridgway and search warrants for three properties in King County where he lived during the past four years dating back to July, 1982. One was the Ridgway family residence where he lived for a short period of time in 1982. Another residence was his current home and the third residence was the home where he lived from 1982 until late 1984.

The task force descended on all three properties with an army of investigators, forensic specialists, dogs, and backhoes. They dug up every square inch of the properties and removed parts of the floors, walls, and cabinets along with drapes and curtains. In all they seized several large truck loads of evidence and removed it to an airplane hangar for examination and testing. They found no incriminating evidence.

Ridgway gave a statement in which he admitted the incident with the steak who had reported her near-death encounter with him two years earlier, but he claimed that his attack was a brief angry reaction to her biting him. He denied attempting to kill her and denied being the GRK. He agreed to take a polygraph and passed.

The case never would have been solved if the police had not obtained buchle swabs of the inside of his cheek pursuant to the search warrant while they had him in custody in 1986. His DNA profile was obtained from those swabs 14 years later and matched to the killer’s DNA profile obtained from the vaginal swabs.

Important Lessons to learn from the GRK case:

Homicide investigations occasionally take many years before sufficient evidence is collected to prove a suspect’s guilt in court beyond a reasonable doubt and there is no point in charging someone unless the charges can be proven.

Ridgway surfaced as a prime suspect within a few months after the bodies were discovered in the Green River in July and August, 1982. Task force detectives did not arrest him for another four years and even then the State decided not to charge him because the case wasn’t strong enough. People who commit homicides often are identified as possible suspects during the early part of an investigation. Sometimes it takes a long time to build a strong case.

Ridgway denied that he was the GRK and passed a polygraph. Passing a polygraph is not persuasive evidence of innocence.

Although Ridgway later admitted that he killed some of his victims in the house in which he lived during the height of his rampage, an army of police and forensic investigators assisted by search and cadaver dogs dug up the yard and practically dismantled the house without finding a trace of evidence that connected him to the murders. Therefore, unproductive searches of various residences in Maura’s case do not establish the innocence of anyone associated with or connected to those residences.

Ridgway is an admitted serial killer. He’s the most prolific serial killer in our nation’s history based on the number of victims he has admitted killing for which there is circumstantial evidence that supports his confessions.

Ridgway’s victims were females known to have engaged in risky behavior such as hitchhiking and prostitution, but those are the only common denominators. His table knife victim had just turned 15; his oldest victim was in her late thirties or early forties. His victims were Caucasian, African-American, and Native-American. They did not wear their hair a certain way or dress a certain way. Some were tall and some were short. Some were skinny and some were fat.

Ridgway did not live alone with his mother and there is no evidence I know of that they had an incestuous, odd, or close relationship. He was married and lived with his wife during his active period and she denied any knowledge of his murderous activities.

Ridgway didn’t have any trouble keeping a burrito. He worked for the same employer for 30 years and probably would still be working there if he had not been arrested.

No one close to him ever suspected that he was the GRK.

Ridgway was not regarded as an intelligent person and he was not a charmer like Ted Bundy. He was shy, a bit awkward, and somewhat self-deprecating. He was frugal by nature and loved to swap junk at flea markets. People did not fear him.

A police officer refused to regard him as a suspect because he knew Ridgway personally.

In many ways Ridgway is an exception to the serial killer profiles and no one should assume that our so-called knowledge of serial killers is useful, reliable, and accurate.

I agree, although I was thinking of the unproductive search of the CW's trailer after he sold it when I mentioned that point. His various statements seem like efforts to dissemble, distract, and confuse investigators rather than assist them. Then again, maybe his normal state of awareness is kind of confused. A confused mind coupled with his desire to be helpful and get some publicity may explain his statements.

I don't want to forget the hospital employee because he was in the area and, if he was wearing scrubs, it's possible that his "uniform" might have been sufficiently reassuring to a nursing student, used to respecting and trusting health professionals, to overcome her fear of getting into a car driven by a stranger.

The scent trail suggests Maura got into a vehicle, Assuming she did not have a friend available nearby who picked her up, I think she would more likely accept a ride from a stranger dressed in scrubs than anyone else.

I not only don't know this person's name, I don't know the person's gender, age, or attire. Talk about speculation, WOW!

"A couple of weeks ago my other laptop went out of commission and I lost all of my bookmarks and files."

If the hard drive on the laptop has not been formatted and the laptop will start to boot, and if you have a CD drive (and assuming you have a PC) If you are able to download knoppix - burn it to a CD - knoppix will boot up your computer from the CD. You will see a GUI and an icon representing your old hard drive.

If you have access to a USB flash drive - you can copy the files from the hard drive to the USB flash drive to save your data.

Ben Franklin wrote:"A couple of weeks ago my other laptop went out of commission and I lost all of my bookmarks and files."

If the hard drive on the laptop has not been formatted and the laptop will start to boot, and if you have a CD drive (and assuming you have a PC) If you are able to download knoppix - burn it to a CD - knoppix will boot up your computer from the CD. You will see a GUI and an icon representing your old hard drive.

If you have access to a USB flash drive - you can copy the files from the hard drive to the USB flash drive to save your data.

Thanks so much for the advice Ben,

It wont even start.

Thankfully I've got a great memory and I'm looking at this as an opportunity to look at everything from a fresh perspective. I've set up a google account and am saving everything on that account from here on out.

It's hard to believe it will be five years since Maura's disappearance as well as Brianna Maitland.

Had it not been for Maura's forum and her family's efforts I would not have known about the so many others whom have gone missing or have been murdered throughout NH/VT/ME/MA.

Anyway - one last thing that might help... you might also be able to take the hard drive out of your old laptop - and maybe - a repair place can put it in - I wouldn't try to put it in myself most times...I'm off topic...

From Mason's post above, as noted by Ben: "Therefore, unproductive searches of various residences in Maura’s case do not establish the innocence of anyone associated with or connected to those residences. "

This highlights the fact that, while not accusing anyone of anything, no one should be eliminated as a person of interest until and unless LE has conclusively established that they have been eliminated as a POI. It is possible - note that I did not say likely - that someone in the area knows more than they've said about Maura's disappearance.

Mason wrote:I agree, although I was thinking of the unproductive search of the CW's trailer after he sold it when I mentioned that point. His various statements seem like efforts to dissemble, distract, and confuse investigators rather than assist them. Then again, maybe his normal state of awareness is kind of confused. A confused mind coupled with his desire to be helpful and get some publicity may explain his statements.

I don't want to forget the hospital employee because he was in the area and, if he was wearing scrubs, it's possible that his "uniform" might have been sufficiently reassuring to a nursing student, used to respecting and trusting health professionals, to overcome her fear of getting into a car driven by a stranger.

The scent trail suggests Maura got into a vehicle, Assuming she did not have a friend available nearby who picked her up, I think she would more likely accept a ride from a stranger dressed in scrubs than anyone else.

I not only don't know this person's name, I don't know the person's gender, age, or attire. Talk about speculation, WOW!

Anyone have any information on this person?

"If you are not part of the solution thenyou are part of the problem"!